All Forum Posts by: Alinda Saffell

Listening -

I lost a great PM about 2 years ago.  For the first year things went along pretty smoothly, although, to be frank, both my rentals are in areas not particularly considered "hot markets" by any means.  That is to say, I only have modest profits because both are paid off.  THIS year, one of the properties is having real problems, and they create such complications that TBH I really don't know how to proceed.  (Nobody on BP talks about unbanked people, disabled/elderly renters, and such, which these are).  I'm trying to identify a capable PM firm now but I'm expecting to have bigger PM costs than I'd have had, if I had immediately engaged a company instead of trying to self-manage.

Just a cautionary tale for your consideration.

I just, this week, started using Stessa - which I learned about from another BP discussion.  I recommend at least taking a quick look at it, I don't know whether it will handle 7 properties (I don't have that many active) but I bet it does.

Just another aspect: how landlord-friendly is the jurisdiction and the HOA? I'm facing a similar dilemma with a couple of properties that have been okay investments, but the situation is changing and I am not sure right now about whether to hold on and try to find good tenants, or sell and try another market area. I would very much like to avoid HOA restrictions, entirely.

Quote from @Matt Devincenzo:

"Hi tenant, I noticed a few maintenance items XX, YY, ZZ that I plan to take care of so that there isn't additional damage caused by them remaining unaddressed. I do also want to mention that if there are any other maintenance issues that you should let me know ASAP so I can ensure I'm providing you with a quality residence, and that the issue doesn't get worse. Thanks Landlord"

That said, if they're barely getting by you probably need to vacate anyway. They're probably not saying anything because they want to stay and think you'll raise rent or vacate them for making repair calls, but the reality is they can't afford the home and need to find something that they can afford. 

Thanks Matt!  

Very helpful.  I have been thinking there may be a need to vacate, too.  However it does seem somehow that the problems they have financially seem cyclical - often they've had problems around this time of the year.  I just got off the phone with them and we did clear up a lot of the concerns I had, but I've also set up an inspection of the property with them.

I have a single family house with longtime tenants who are just barely getting by financially, and experiencing various health problems.  My wonderful property manager retired 1.5 years ago, and handed things over to me.  I made the mistake of assuming all was well.  But this month when I had a contractor visit to do some minor repairs, he reported back to me about a number of growing maintenance concerns I have had no clue about from the tenants.  What should I do to improve this situation?  Thanks, in advance, for suggestions.

Quote from @Ned Carey:

Welcome to BP. 
We have a lot of members from MD here.

 

Thank you (and thanks to other BP members too) for the welcome!  I'm looking forward to participating and learning lots!

I have been in a somewhat similar situation and having trouble deciding what to do, so I think everyone on this thread for the question and comments. I haven't raised rents up TO market value but I am thinking I will tell my tenants I plan on a small increase in the New Year (both my SFR are on month-to-month leases now). They are good tenants and I don't look forward to going through all of the pain of finding replacements for them.

Belay that one - I figured my problem out.  I was looking at the (default, I guess) Interests panel, which has a "pencil" icon, that I thought meant I could edit it from there.  But now I realize that I needed to go to Settings first, then to the panel for Interests, and I happily was able to add and remove to suit my needs.

I'm brand new, so quite likely I'm missing something.  However, people have been telling us new folks to add our interests to our profiles.  I can't seem to do that.  I see a group of lozenges with interests when I go to my profile, but I can't remove OR add any.  Is this a browser issue maybe?  I'll go try MS Edge, but I prefer Mozilla Firefox desktop.  No comment on old v. new site design, obv!

I'm not so much new to RE investing, but looking to be more informed and skillful in it. I currently have 2 SFH properties in nearby Maryland communities that I have bought and held for some time. I had a property manager who despite advancing age was a real pro who took care of *everything* on the properties for me, but she decided to retire a year or so ago. She left me with her contact info, lots of prior preparation, and all documents related to the properties, and the existing tenants in both.

The tenants are far from well-off, however.  I would like to raise rents, but having tried my hand in the past at finding new tenants I'm not exactly anxious to jump into that fray again, so I'm sitting tight.  One of the properties is rented to unbanked tenants, so I haven't found a way so far to expedite rent collections, although I'm happy to say that has not become an issue.  I hope that it won't, but I know hope is not a strategy.

Anyway - I'm here to learn and connect with others currently operating as small landlords, maybe particularly in MD or in the DMV area. 

Thanks for reading!